It doesn't always have to be advanced...

White bread, Heinz ketchup, smoked streaky bacon.

Recipe - Aussie Hot Dog Sandwich

Anyone who has been to Australia should have sampled the great Aussie Burger. It's a great show of excess and will not fail in making you feel well and truly full.

The thing that categorises a Aussie burger, at least to me, are three main ingredients. Beetroot, pineapple and a fried egg. All the major hamburger chains down under have a Aussie Burger on their menu as well.

If you ever go to Australia, this is one to try.

Since there are literally thousands of Aussie Burger recipes floating around the t'Interweb I thought I'd do something a bit different - The Aussie Hot Dog Sandwich.

Let's just say that it turned out to be quite a monster. Definitively nothing you should try if you are a child, pregnant or generally a sissy.

I'm sure that I would have found a Health & Safety warning sticker somewhere on it if I just had looked properly.

Enough waffling, let's see how to create one of these monsters...

Ingredients (makes one ginormous sandwich)
1 ciabatta, cut to the length of the hot dogs
Yellow mustard, preferably French's
Sliced beetroot
2 hot dogs, cooked and sliced in half
2 pineapple rings
2 slices of tomato
2 fried eggs
4 rashers of streaky bacon, cooked
Grated, or slices of, cheese

Method
Slice the ciabatta lengthways. Put generous amounts of mustard on the bottom half of ciabatta. Then layer in the following order: Beetroot, hot dogs, pineapple rings, tomatoes, fried eggs and bacon. Finish off with the grated cheese.

Put the sandwich under the grill (broiler) until the cheese has melted and are starting to get brown.

Put the top half of the ciabatta on top of it all.

Enjoy!

Recipe - Tomato and Chipotle Prawns

This is a fairly quick and easy way to get a tasty prawn dish on the table. There isn't much work involved but the end result is quite awesome.

I served it with rice but you could also serve it in tortillas/tacos or on its own as part of a tapas or buffet spread.

Adjust the hotness to your own liking but this is a dish that begs for a bit of a kick.

Save some of the coriander so you can use that for decoration when you plate the dish(es)

Ingredients (serves 2 - 4)
1 dried chipotle chili
Olive oil
1 onion, diced
1 clove of garlic, finely diced
500g passata
200g raw prawns, peeled and de-veined
4 tbsp coriander (cilantro), torn or chopped
Hot sauce to taste
Salt
Pepper

Method
Stem the chipotle and rehydrate it in warm water as per the instructions on the packaging. Once re hydrated, dice the chili.

Heat the olive oil on a low heat. Add the chili, onion and garlic and let that sweat on low heat for 5 - 10 minutes. Stir in the passata and bring it to a simmer. Let this simmer for another 5 - 10 minutes or until reduced to your liking.

Add hot sauce and seasoning to taste and then stir in the coriander. Stir in the prawns and let them cook for 2 - 3 minutes, or until cooked.

Enjoy!

Recipe - Decadent Rock-n-Roll Sandwich

Yup, I know - this is wrong. So very wrong. Wrong on so many levels. But still, it had to be tried. If it was good enough for The King...

I honestly can't say what made me try this but being curious, stupid and in total contempt of my calorie intake is probably high up the list.

This was allegedly one of Elvis Presley's favourite sandwiches although I understand that his was made with a slight bit difference. I think that even his banana slices were fried in butter. It wouldn't surprise me if he had the entire sandwich battered and deep-fried too.

I used a Swedish spice mix called Grillkrydda (literally barbecue spice) as a dry rub for my chicken breast but you could use cajun spice or something similar instead.

Ok, let's head over and see how to clog our arteries in a true rock and roll way...

Ingredients (makes one sandwich)
1 bread roll, sub roll, baguette or similar
4 slices of smoked streaky bacon
1 boneless chicken breast
Dry rub (grillkrydda, cajun spice mix or similar)
1 ripe but still firm banana
Peanut butter, crunchy or smooth is up to you

Method
Fry the bacon until crispy, leave to cool on some kitchen towel. Dry rub the chicken breast and pan fry until done, alternatively pan fry to seal it and finish it off in the oven. Let the chicken rest until cool enough to handle. Once cool enough, slice it up.

Slice the bread lengthways, spread with a good layer of peanut butter. Top firstly with banana, then bacon and finally finish off with the sliced chicken.

Enjoy!

Recipe - Pork Mince Tostada

Continuing down the route of maybe-not-so-authentic-but-quite-tasty Mexican dishes I stopped to make Tostadas. After what I can understand you can use most types of meat, and beans, to make Tostadas. Since I already had some pork mince in the fridge my choice was easy.

You could serve this dish already plated, or you could do it Taco style and have all the ingredients on in bowls etc the table and let people assemble your own.

If you do it a bit more stylish than what I did last night you could almost make mini-Tostadas to serve as starters for a Mexican themed dinner etc.

This is a dish you really can freestyle...

Ingredients (serves 2 - 4)
Olive oil
500g pork mince
1 large onion
300g - 500g jar of salsa (or homemade if you wish)

To serve (all optional)
Corn tortillas
Grated cheese
Sour Cream
Sliced pickled jalapenos
Lettuce, shredded
Spring onions, sliced

Method
Heat the oil in a frying pan on a medium heat.

Add the mince and the onion and fry until cooked through and all the liquids have disappeared. Add the salsa, bring to a simmer and let simmer until most (or all) of the liquids have disappeared and the mixture has a texture you like.

Either quickly heat the tortillas in a frying pan or in a oven. Pile some mince mixture on each one then top with the toppings of your choice.

Enjoy!

Recipe - Ham and Refried Beans Torta

Here I go again, cooking something I've never tasted. What I did was read some book a while ago. I think it was either a Lansdale or a Burke, where the protagonists ate some tortas. That made me interested enough to Google some pictures and recipes so this is really a hotchpotch of a number of sources.

The risk with this is that although I really liked it, it might not be what I should expect when I get to try it 'for real'. The real thing might be disgusting and I might just have gotten lucky as well as tailoring it to my own taste and preferences. Never mind, I guess I'll find out one day.

Hopefully I didn't screw it up too badly, otherwise I'll end up being chased by the Council of Torta Makers or something like that.

Enough waffling, let's make some tortas...

Ingredients (makes 2 rolls)
2 bread rolls, I used ciabatta rolls
200g - 300g refried beans
2 slices of good quality smoked ham, torn or sliced
1 tomato sliced
Pickled sliced green jalapenos to taste, drained
2 slices Monterey Jack cheese
2 tbsp coriander (cilantro), roughly torn
2 tbsp sour cream
Shredded romaine lettuce

Method
Pre-heat the oven to 190c.

Slice the bread rolls lengthwise and hollow out both the top and bottom bit. Divide the refried beans between the two bottom halfs. Top with the ham, then the tomato slices. Add the jalapenos, top with cheese and then finish off with the coriander.

Put the tops on the bread rolls and wrap the tortas with aluminium foil. Pop them on a baking tray and hoik them into the oven for 10 minutes or until well warmed through.

Remove from the oven, carefully remove the aluminium foil. Take the tops off, add the sour cream and lettuce. Tops back on.

Enjoy!

Recipe - Crispy Soy and Honey Pork Mince with Egg Noodles

This is another one of those recipes that I don't really know where it comes from but I keep cooking. It might be something I've found in cookbook or a magazine, or even something I've tried to recreate from restaurant meal somewhere. Never mind, it's nice and I like it.

As you can see there are not many ingredients to it and I prefer to keep it that way. If you want to freestyle it, go ahead - adding stuff like green peas etc would work really well.

It doesn't have any real spice added so use some nice chili sauce like Sriracha to kick it once you got it in front of you.

As the title says, it's supposed to be a bit crispy. Looking at the packaging for the pork mince I bought I saw that the recommended cooking method and time was to pan fry it for 40 minutes. Yes, you read that right. 40 minutes. They must be a) on drugs, b) mental, c) very afraid of lawsuits or d) all of the above.

Enough bitching about stupid labelling, let's have a look at the recipe.

Ingredients (serves 4)
4 nests of medium egg noodles
Olive oil
500g pork mince
1 - 2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
4 spring onions, sliced (save some for decoration)
4 tbsp soy sauce
2 - 3 tbs runny honey
Fried crispy onions, optional for decoration

Method
Heat the olive oil in a frying pan on a medium to high heat. Add the mince and fry until it starts to change colour, add the garlic and spring onions. Keep frying until all liquid has evaporated and the mince starts to brown up.

Add the soy sauce and honey and keep frying whilst stirring all the time. Let the liquids cook in and allow the mince to crisp up properly.

In the meantime, cook the noodles according to the packaging.

Once the mince is crispy enough for your liking, serve it on top of the noodles. Top with some spring onions slices and crispy onions.

Enjoy!

Recipe - Rose Petal Couscous Salad

Eating flowers? Am I crazy? Yes, a little bit I guess - but not in this case. There is a large number of flowers that you can eat the whole flower or parts of it.

Roses have a long tradition of being used in foods. Today you can find it in rose harissa and rose water for example.

If you are going to try this recipe, make sure that you wash the petals very carefully. Various roses have different strength of flavour so try a petal to try and judge how many you'll need in your salad.

This dish works just as well as a standalone salad served indvidually as it does as a larger shared salad at a barbecue for example. It compliments barbecued lamb really well.

Many thanks to Mrs T. for letting me use some of her beloved roses in the making of this dish. Update: I have been told that this particular rose is called Warm Welcome.

Let's hit the recipe and see how to cook this.

Ingredients (serves 4 - 6)
Couscous for 4
Vegetable stock
1 tbsp dried mint
1 can of chickpeas, drained and heated as per the tin
10 cm piece of cucumber - halved, deseeded and diced
4 medium tomatoes, deseeded and diced
6 dried apricots, diced
Rose petals, to taste
Rose bulbs, to decorate (optional)

Method
Cook the couscous as per the instructions of the packaging, replacing water with the vegetable stock and adding the dried mint.

Once the couscous is cooked, fluff it up with a fork. Add the rest of the ingredients and stir it all up well.

Serve in individual bowls or on a large communal plate. If you want to, decorate with some rose bulbs.

Enjoy!

Funky Padron Peppers - Part 2

These little peppers really did taste nice, with the odd one out having a bit of a kick.

For once I didn't freestyle it, I actually followed the instructions on the packaging. Fry in olive oil for 3 minutes or so, until the skin on the peppers starts to blister. Hoik them into a bowl and sprinkle some salt over them. Job done.

Just peppers on their own would have been a bit too one-dimensional so I decided to add in some other small bits and pieces.

I ended up with a little platter consisting of the following: Padron peppers, chili stuffed olives, manchego cheese, Salchichon Ibérico, Chorizon Ibérico and Lomo Ibérico.

If you add some nice bread to that you'll find yourself with a nice (almost) non-cook dinner that you can enjoy in a nice and slow tempo.

I know for a fact that you can find these Padron Peppers in Waitrose but I'm sure there are some other shops around that stock them too.

Funky Padron Peppers

I found these funky looking Padron Peppers in my local supermarket. I've never seen or heard about them before, that's probably just me being ignorant as usual, so I had to grab a bag of them.

It says "1 in 30 has a kick!" on the packaging so I guess I'll have to verify that. I'll also verify if said kick is enough to warrant the image of a angry kicking bull on the front or if it should have been a slightly agitated wax worm instead.

The packaging says to fry them in olive oil for about 3 minutes or until the skin starts to blister, hopefully on the peppers. Once that's done, pop them into a bowl and sprinkle some salt over them.

I'll see if I can find any alternative ways of cooking them or if that is it. Once cooked and tried I'll post my findings up here.

In the meantime if anyone reading this knows anything about these little peppers, drop me a comment and let me know!